Fall 1997 Issue

IN EVERY ISSUE

Soo News
WC News
Editor's Report
Executive Report
Gallery
Rip Track
Letters
Transfer Table
Less-Than-Carload

STAFF

Editor
Rick Johnson

Associate Editor
Ken Soroos

Associate Editor/Soo News
Jason Korth

Soo News
tom Mastoras

Wiconsin Central News
Galen Fromm

Modeling Editor
Chuck Derus

Contributing Editors
Andy Roth, Guy Kieckhefer, Doug Fleming

Editorial Consultants
Jack Witmer, Gregg Condon

Technical Consultants
Stuart J. Nelson, Wallace W. Abbey

Commercial Accounts
Joe Lallensack

Advertising Manager
Burnell Breaker

Back Issues
John Strenski

Fall 1997 Issue Hightlights

Wisconsin Central:

What makes it tick?

by Galen Fromm

Ten years in the making, today's Wisconsin Central is the result of a fascinating blend of lines whose heritage rings of classic railroads of yore: Chicago & North Western, Milwaukee Road, Soo Line, DSS&A and, of course, the original Wisconsin Central. There is little need for us to cover the "new" WC's history and development in these pages when it has been so admirably done in Otto Dobnick's and Steve Glischinski's Wisconsin Central: Railroad Success Story (Kalmbach Publishing, 1997). Save for some of the photos, our special Wisconsin Central salute instead focuses on WC operations typical in late 1997 and early 1998. We can thank WC SLHTS member and WC aficionado Galen Fromm for this comprehensive operational coverage, which begins on the following pages; illustration is courtesy of several readers of the SOO. Regardless of the contemporary nature of Galen's feature, heritage remains an important factor in understanding WC operations and geography, so we've included a special color-coded map to help sort out WC's complex network of trains and lines.

Kitchi, Michigan:

The town that time (but not Carl Hansen) forgot

Reflections of growing up on the Duluth, South Shore & Atlantic around Kitchi, Mich., early in the 20th Century

By Andrew Roth

The South Shore played a large part in Carl Hansen's life while he was growing up. "My dad, John Hansen, started working for the DSS&A shortly after the railroad completed its extension from Nestoria, Mich., to Iron River, Wis. The DSS&A began running trains through Iron River to Duluth in late 1888. He began work as a section man at Trout Creek, Mich. [milepost 239.1]. In 1903, he was assigned the position of section foreman for Section No. 47, replacing Ed Olon. Dad moved our family to the section house which was just west of Kitchi, Mich. (milepost 230.0). I was born the following year in April 1904," recalls Carl Hansen.

A Watersmeet newspaper states that the town of Kitchi was in the middle of a busy logging area from the 1870s until about 1900. The town's population peaked at 500 people. After 1900, the logging industry gradually petered out around Kitchi. By 1904, when Carl was born, the town was on a downward decline.

In the 1890s, a 1.87-mile rail spur left the South Shore at Kitchi and went northwest to a lumber mill that predominately made cedar roof shingles. Neff's shingle mill started operations in early 1892, and the woods around Kitchi were alive with lumbermen. Neff's mill was in operation through at least 1899; however, the mill with its jobs and the rail spur were gone by the time Carl was born five years later.

In addition to a number of homes, Kitchi had a hardware store, drug store, meat market, general merchandise store, boarding houses, a one-room school and a small depot. A lot of supplies for the local stores was shipped in by the South Shore. Merchants hauled the goods on little carts from the depot to the stores. People living around Kitchi would take the train to the hospital at Marquette or the hospital at Ironwood. They did not do a lot of traveling; the stores in Kitchi and Kenton were pretty well stocked. Sometimes residents went to large cities like Marquette for a place to shop.

Soo's Thrall Covered Hoppers

By Guy N. Kieckhefer

In the twenty years between April 1962 and July 1981, the Soo Line added to its car roster 3,929 new high-capacity (4,000 cubic foot and up) covered hoppers. While 60% of these cars were built by either Pullman-Standard or American Car & Foundry, the remaining 40% came from four other car builders with Thrall Car Manufacturing Company supplying 450 of these cars, numbered 72451–73349, between February 1971 and April 1972. Following the delivery of the last ACF 4,600-cubic-foot covered hoppers in the 76400– 76599 series in July 1981, the Soo adopted a new policy for the next 14 years of primarily leasing low-mileage used covered hoppers rather than securing new cars from a builder because of a radical change in the economics involved. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the railroad car builders enjoyed an unprecedented peacetime boom fueled by tax legislation that suddenly made the leasing of railroad equipment very attractive financially. Unfortunately the repeal of this tax provision coupled with the onset of the 1981-82 recession quickly ended this carbuilding boom, leaving most car builders with an unsold inventory of cars built on speculation or rejected by car lessors or shortline railroads no longer able to lease them at a profit.

Thrall Car, like most other carbuilders, faced with a glut of unsold or unleased cars, desperately attempted to find a home for them in the early 1980s at any reasonable cost. The Soo Line, as a result, over the next ten years leased for varying periods of time 150 of these late-model Thrall 4,750-cubic-foot covered hoppers, typically built in 1981 or 1982. It also received another 188 such cars with its purchase of the Minneapolis, Northfield & Southern and Milwaukee Road in 1982 and 1985 respectively. Most of these surplus Thrall 4,750-cubic-foot covered hoppers were painted either an overall light gray for sale or lease to shortline customers or in the distinctive diagonal red/white paint scheme of its leasing division, Transportation Corporation of America (TCAX). In 1985 the Soo Line leased 60 such cars in its 3101–3222 car series from Thrall which were to remain on the Soo roster for five years.

There is no exact model available of this particular Thrall covered hopper, although the earlier Pullman-Standard 4,740-cubic-foot covered hopper model offered in HO scale by Athearn (its 5300 series) should be close enough for most modelers.

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